My right eye couldn’t focus.<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s not an accurate description.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s more like…what I saw was akin to a funhouse mirror.\u00c2\u00a0 I opened my suitcase, removed the cleaning fluid and scrubbed my contact.\u00c2\u00a0 It seemed to have a minor effect.\u00c2\u00a0 I kept testing it all the way to the airport in Eagle.\u00c2\u00a0 And before I came to a final conclusion, we were on the plane.<\/p>\n
We were running late.\u00c2\u00a0 You see the plane had been grounded in Aspen for three hours.\u00c2\u00a0 On its way back to Van Nuys earlier in the day.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the pilot told us.\u00c2\u00a0 You see it’s been precipitating in California.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where Mammoth Mountain got 95" in two days.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything was backed up.<\/p>\n
Wolfgang told us at breakfast on Sunday that the reason the dining room seemed empty was because everybody had bailed.\u00c2\u00a0 In advance of the big storm in Vail.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the sky broke into blue about 10:15 Monday morning above Tea Cup Bowl we thought we were home free.\u00c2\u00a0 That we’d made the right decision.\u00c2\u00a0 That our return trip would be effortless.\u00c2\u00a0 So we were shook up when we got back to the condo to prepare to leave and found out we were delayed.<\/p>\n
There’s a trepidation flying into weather.\u00c2\u00a0 The pilot told us to expect it to be bumpy over Palmdale.\u00c2\u00a0 But the takeoff was smooth.\u00c2\u00a0 The Colorado sky was clear.\u00c2\u00a0 Except for the sliver of moon through the front window.<\/p>\n
So I opened up the "Sports Illustrated" in the seat pocket beside me and started to read.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, TRIED is more like it.\u00c2\u00a0 The words, they were a blur.<\/p>\n
So I had Luca throw me a pillow.\u00c2\u00a0 I lay my head back.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried to fall asleep.\u00c2\u00a0 But despite awakening at 7:15.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite skiing all the way back to Blue Sky Basin.\u00c2\u00a0 My eyes wouldn’t close.\u00c2\u00a0 Those runs in the blowing snow on Lionshead the day before kept running through my brain.<\/p>\n
It was silent within my Bose noise-cancelled domain, but my head wasn’t empty enough to travel to never never land.\u00c2\u00a0 And then a synapse fired.\u00c2\u00a0 I could get out the headphones’ cable, remove my iPod from my laptop bag and listen to music.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to hear the song in my brain.\u00c2\u00a0 The one I was reflecting on while I was thinking of skiing in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 Simon &\u00c2\u00a0 Garfunkel’s "For Emily,\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever I May Find Her".<\/p>\n
At first the iPod wouldn’t come alive.\u00c2\u00a0 If I leave it off for a few days I have to jump-start it, resetting it by holding down the center button and the click wheel just above it.\u00c2\u00a0 And once the iPod came alive, it showed almost no juice.\u00c2\u00a0 But finally a sliver of power bar appeared.\u00c2\u00a0 And I dialed in the duo from Queens.<\/p>\n
I didn’t play "For Emily" first.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted it to sneak up on me.\u00c2\u00a0 But this was a mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 When you need to hear a certain song, only it will do.\u00c2\u00a0 When it finally came up, I played it twice.\u00c2\u00a0 And then the live take.\u00c2\u00a0 And then I didn’t know what to do.\u00c2\u00a0 All I knew was I wanted to hear the RIGHT music.\u00c2\u00a0 That I didn’t want to fast-forward through everything on the iPod, cherry-picking what sounded right.\u00c2\u00a0 So I went to a smart playlist.\u00c2\u00a0 The one that contained the 200 most played tracks in my iTunes library.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t want to spin the Top 25, I wanted to be surprised.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why I didn’t spin the Top 100 either.\u00c2\u00a0 With 200 tracks, I might be caught off guard.\u00c2\u00a0 And I was.<\/p>\n
Amazing what you’ve played thirty or forty times on your computer.\u00c2\u00a0 Stuff that you’d never believe you loved that much.\u00c2\u00a0 But somewhere over Utah I heard a song that sounded so right that it had me jumping in my seat, grooving like the teenager I once was, infected, POSSESSED by the sound.\u00c2\u00a0 That song was Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ "The Wild One, Forever".<\/p>\n
Tom Petty’s first record is the best.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe because it was produced by Denny Cordell instead of Jimmy Iovine.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like the basement it was cut in.\u00c2\u00a0 A late night record for fans, for believers, not the entire universe.\u00c2\u00a0 The "hit" is "American Girl".\u00c2\u00a0 But the absolute best tracks are two quite ones.\u00c2\u00a0 Each one the second to last cut on the side.\u00c2\u00a0 "Luna" and "The Wild One, Forever".<\/p>\n
Life is about hope.\u00c2\u00a0 Extinguish hope and you die.<\/p>\n
You don’t have to be in the corporate boardroom.\u00c2\u00a0 You can be in the bar.\u00c2\u00a0 In a barn in the country.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll find some guy spinning his story, what happened to him, where he’s going.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s self-validation.\u00c2\u00a0 The reason Tom Petty is so great is he sings about those guys, there.\u00c2\u00a0 Real people.\u00c2\u00a0 What they feel.<\/p>\n
Yeah they call you the wild one, said stay away from her Guys love a challenge.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they don’t MARRY the challenge.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you can never hold on to the challenge.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s just too elusive.\u00c2\u00a0 Guys marry the women who are nice to them.\u00c2\u00a0 Who are compassionate.\u00c2\u00a0 Who are supportive.\u00c2\u00a0 Who understand them.<\/p>\n Oh, some guys make a mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 They tie the knot with the challenge.\u00c2\u00a0 You know these people.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re bitter.\u00c2\u00a0 When they’re alive enough to tell their tale.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s just what every other guy has, a tale.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the time when they got their dick hard and WENT FOR IT!<\/p>\n You know her.\u00c2\u00a0 She was tall.\u00c2\u00a0 And skinny.\u00c2\u00a0 With long hair.<\/p>\n Or maybe it was her charisma.\u00c2\u00a0 The way she gave you attitude.<\/p>\n You had to get closer.\u00c2\u00a0 To the flame.<\/p>\n Girls can never understand.\u00c2\u00a0 Why we’re attracted to the unreasonable.\u00c2\u00a0 Oftentimes someone all the rest of the girls HATE!\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe it’s just that they don’t write many songs from this perspective.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe it’s after sleeping with the leader of the pack, girls don’t boast about it.\u00c2\u00a0 They reminisce and weep silently.<\/p>\n But then somethin’ I saw The operative word here is "hours".\u00c2\u00a0 A glance can be a whole relationship to a guy.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t need history.\u00c2\u00a0 We just need moments.\u00c2\u00a0 Which we never forget.<\/p>\n Not that it’s reciprocal.<\/p>\n Yeah, it’s been a long time but I don’t mind If you don’t know a guy who has confessed to one of these dreams that the moment he believes they shared was a highlight of his life, you just don’t know that many guys, at least not well.\u00c2\u00a0 We should hold it in, but we’re bursting, we’ve told all our buddies.\u00c2\u00a0 We can’t hold back.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got to make contact.\u00c2\u00a0 To be let down easily.\u00c2\u00a0 With a flip of the head, with a laugh.\u00c2\u00a0 But, despite the rejection, we still treasure the experience.<\/p>\n Down inside I knew right away Women think it’s about sex.\u00c2\u00a0 That that’s all we want.<\/p>\n But that isn’t true.\u00c2\u00a0 We just want to be close to you.<\/p>\n But two more words come after the last line quoted above.\u00c2\u00a0 "And ever."<\/p>\n The song doesn’t end there.\u00c2\u00a0 Like real life, endings are not abrupt.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just like the break in "Here Comes My Girl" off "Damn The Torpedoes".\u00c2\u00a0 The record changes groove.\u00c2\u00a0 And as Mike Campbell’s guitar sparkles softly, your mind is set adrift.<\/p>\n But nothing written above reflects Tom Petty’s vocal.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, it’s ALL of the above.\u00c2\u00a0 The swagger of a guy trying to connect.\u00c2\u00a0 The shrugging off of the rejection upon REconnection.\u00c2\u00a0 And the pathos of a guy confessing to a buddy what happened to him.\u00c2\u00a0 It hurts, but it feels so good.\u00c2\u00a0 These are the stories that keep you going, that make life worth living.<\/p>\n Suddenly, the plane started to bounce.\u00c2\u00a0 And then brilliant flashes of light shone through the front window.\u00c2\u00a0 As if someone were setting off firecrackers just in front of the cockpit.\u00c2\u00a0 I looked up at the monitor, and the icon of the plane was over Palmdale.<\/p>\n Clouds out the window confirmed the light show in front of us.\u00c2\u00a0 Our beams were being reflected by the their amorphous fuzziness.<\/p>\n And then, after banking over the Santa Monica Mountains, the plane dropped down onto the tarmac in Van Nuys.\u00c2\u00a0 Where, despite the pools of water on the ground, the rain had stopped.<\/p>\n As the bags were being placed in the cars, as we were saying our goodbyes, Chris came up to me.\u00c2\u00a0 He asked, "What was that song you were rocking out to on the plane?"<\/p>\n I told him, THE WILD ONE, FOREVER!<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My right eye couldn’t focus. Maybe that’s not an accurate description.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s more like…what I saw was akin to a funhouse mirror.\u00c2\u00a0 I opened my suitcase, removed the cleaning fluid and scrubbed my contact.\u00c2\u00a0 It seemed to have a minor effect.\u00c2\u00a0 I kept testing it all the way to the airport in Eagle.\u00c2\u00a0 And before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-4l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Said she could love no one if she tried<\/em><\/p>\n
In your eyes told me right away
That you were gonna have to be mine
When the strangest feeling came over me
Down inside no matter what it takes
I’ll never get over how good it felt
When you finally held me
I’ll never regret
Baby those few hours
Will grow in my head
Forever<\/em><\/p>\n
Yeah, it’s all right I understand<\/em><\/p>\n
I’ll never get over how good it felt
When you finally kissed me
I will never regret
Baby those few hours
Will grow in my head
Forever<\/em><\/p>\n